ACT 1
Scene 2

...he had one.
Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, Camillo, and Attendants.
Nine changes of the wat’ry star hath been
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. Time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
And yet we should for perpetuity
Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one “We thank you” many thousands more
That go before it.

...when you part.
Sir, that’s tomorrow.
I am questioned by my fears of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
No sneaping winds at home to make us say
“This is put forth too truly.” Besides, I have stayed
To tire your Royalty.

...us to ’t.
No longer stay.

...One sev’nnight longer.
Very sooth, tomorrow.

...I’ll no gainsaying.
Press me not, beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’ th’ world,
So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward, which to hinder
Were in your love a whip to me, my stay
To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
Farewell, our brother.

...her lord.—You’ll stay?
No, madam.

...but you will?
I may not, verily.

...you shall be.
Your guest, then, madam.
To be your prisoner should import offending,
Which is for me less easy to commit
Than you to punish.

...pretty lordings then?
We were, fair queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day tomorrow as today,
And to be boy eternal.

...o’ th’ two?
We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ th’ sun
And bleat the one at th’ other. What we changed
Was innocence for innocence. We knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne’er been higher reared
With stronger blood, we should have answered heaven
Boldly “Not guilty,” the imposition cleared
Hereditary ours.

...have tripped since.
O my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to ’s, for
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;
Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes
Of my young playfellow.

...while a friend.
She gives Polixenes her hand.

...of my brows.
What means Sicilia?

...something seems unsettled.
How, my lord?

...be of ours?
If at home, sir,
He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
He makes a July’s day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

...her allowing husband!
Exit Hermione, Polixenes, and Attendants.

...Here comes Bohemia.
Enter Polixenes.
aside
This is strange. Methinks
My favor here begins to warp. Not speak?—
Good day, Camillo.

...most royal sir.
What is the news i’ th’ court?

...rare, my lord.
The King hath on him such a countenance
As he had lost some province and a region
Loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him
With customary compliment, when he,
Wafting his eyes to th’ contrary and falling
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and
So leaves me to consider what is breeding
That changes thus his manners.

...my lord.
How, dare not? Do not? Do you know and dare not?
Be intelligent to me—’tis thereabouts;
For to yourself what you do know, you must,
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
Your changed complexions are to me a mirror
Which shows me mine changed too, for I must be
A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus altered with ’t.

...yet are well.
How caught of me?
Make me not sighted like the basilisk.
I have looked on thousands who have sped the better
By my regard, but killed none so. Camillo,
As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto
Clerklike experienced, which no less adorns
Our gentry than our parents’ noble names,
In whose success we are gentle, I beseech you,
If you know aught which does behoove my knowledge
Thereof to be informed, imprison ’t not
In ignorant concealment.

...may not answer.
A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo?
I conjure thee by all the parts of man
Which honor does acknowledge, whereof the least
Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare
What incidency thou dost guess of harm
Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
Which way to be prevented, if to be;
If not, how best to bear it.

...and so goodnight.
On, good Camillo.

...to murder you.
By whom, Camillo?

...By the King.
For what?

...his queen Forbiddenly.
O, then my best blood turn
To an infected jelly, and my name
Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!
Turn then my freshest reputation to
A savor that may strike the dullest nostril
Where I arrive, and my approach be shunned,
Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection
That e’er was heard or read.

...of his body.
How should this grow?

...His execution sworn.
I do believe thee.
I saw his heart in ’s face. Give me thy hand.
Be pilot to me and thy places shall
Still neighbor mine. My ships are ready and
My people did expect my hence departure
Two days ago. This jealousy
Is for a precious creature. As she’s rare,
Must it be great; and as his person’s mighty,
Must it be violent; and as he does conceive
He is dishonored by a man which ever
Professed to him, why, his revenges must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me.
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta’en suspicion. Come, Camillo,
I will respect thee as a father if
Thou bear’st my life off hence. Let us avoid.

...Come, sir, away.
They exit.

ACT 4
Scene 2

...you never may.
Enter Polixenes and Camillo.
I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more
importunate. ’Tis a sickness denying thee anything,
a death to grant this.

...to my departure.
As thou lov’st me, Camillo, wipe not out the
rest of thy services by leaving me now. The need I
have of thee thine own goodness hath made. Better
not to have had thee than thus to want thee. Thou,
having made me businesses which none without
thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to
execute them thyself or take away with thee the very
services thou hast done, which if I have not enough
considered, as too much I cannot, to be more
thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit
therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country
Sicilia, prithee speak no more, whose very
naming punishes me with the remembrance of that
penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled king
my brother, whose loss of his most precious queen
and children are even now to be afresh lamented.
Say to me, when sawst thou the Prince Florizell, my
son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not
being gracious, than they are in losing them when
they have approved their virtues.

...he hath appeared.
I have considered so much, Camillo, and
with some care, so far that I have eyes under my
service which look upon his removedness, from
whom I have this intelligence: that he is seldom
from the house of a most homely shepherd, a man,
they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the
imagination of his neighbors, is grown into an
unspeakable estate.

...such a cottage.
That’s likewise part of my intelligence, but,
I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou
shalt accompany us to the place, where we will, not
appearing what we are, have some question with
the shepherd, from whose simplicity I think it not
uneasy to get the cause of my son’s resort thither.
Prithee be my present partner in this business, and
lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

...obey your command.
My best Camillo. We must disguise
ourselves.
They exit.

Scene 4

...red with mirth.
Enter Shepherd, Shepherd’s Son, Mopsa, Dorcas, Shepherds and Shepherdesses, Servants, Musicians, and Polixenes and Camillo in disguise.

...to our shearing.
Shepherdess—
A fair one are you—well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.

...slips of them.
Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?

...great creating nature.
Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean. So, over that art
Which you say adds to nature is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race. This is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.

...So it is.
Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
And do not call them bastards.

...swear for ’em.
to Camillo
This is the prettiest lowborn lass that ever
Ran on the greensward. Nothing she does or seems
But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.

...Shepherds and Shepherdesses.
Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
Which dances with your daughter?

...loves another best.
She dances featly.

...harm, good man.”
This is a brave fellow.

...we weary you.
You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let’s
see these four threes of herdsmen.

...dressed as Satyrs.
to Shepherd
O father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.
Aside to Camillo.
Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part them.
He’s simple, and tells much. To Florizell.
How now, fair shepherd?
Your heart is full of something that does take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
And handed love, as you do, I was wont
To load my she with knacks. I would have ransacked
The peddler’s silken treasury and have poured it
To her acceptance. You have let him go
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.

...blasts twice o’er.
What follows this?—
How prettily th’ young swain seems to wash
The hand was fair before.—I have put you out.
But to your protestation. Let me hear
What you profess.

...witness to ’t.
And this my neighbor too?

...their own perdition.
Fairly offered.

...And daughter, yours.
To Florizell
Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you.
Have you a father?

...what of him?
Knows he of this?

...does nor shall.
Methinks a father
Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,
Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
With age and alt’ring rheums? Can he speak? Hear?
Know man from man? Dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bedrid, and again does nothing
But what he did being childish?

...of his age.
By my white beard,
You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial. Reason my son
Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason
The father, all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity, should hold some counsel
In such a business.

...of this business.
Let him know ’t.

...He shall not.
Prithee let him.

...Mark our contract.
removing his disguise
Mark your divorce, young sir,
Whom son I dare not call. Thou art too base
To be acknowledged. Thou a scepter’s heir
That thus affects a sheep-hook!—Thou, old traitor,
I am sorry that by hanging thee I can
But shorten thy life one week.—And thou, fresh piece
Of excellent witchcraft, whom of force must know
The royal fool thou cop’st with—

...O, my heart!
I’ll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made
More homely than thy state.—For thee, fond boy,
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
That thou no more shalt see this knack—as never
I mean thou shalt—we’ll bar thee from succession,
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
Far’r than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.
Follow us to the court. To Shepherd.
Thou, churl, for this time,
Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
From the dead blow of it.—And you, enchantment,
Worthy enough a herdsman—yea, him too,
That makes himself, but for our honor therein,
Unworthy thee—if ever henceforth thou
These rural latches to his entrance open,
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
I will devise a death as cruel for thee
As thou art tender to ’t.
He exits.

ACT 5
Scene 3

...thy good masters.
Enter Leontes, Polixenes, Florizell, Perdita, Camillo, Paulina, and Lords.

...as this seems.
O, not by much!

...itself much sooner.
Dear my brother,
Let him that was the cause of this have power
To take off so much grief from you as he
Will piece up in himself.

...verily bear blood?
Masterly done.
The very life seems warm upon her lip.

...Lawful as eating.
She embraces him.

...her speak too.
Ay, and make it manifest where she has lived,
Or how stol’n from the dead.

...Hastily lead away.
They exit.